A Great Pub, Fit For An Emperor!

A Memory of Croydon.

Ah the Forum! What a fine and individual pub! I often wondered why the brewers, Ind Coope, called their pub this! Anyone any ideas????? I was at Croydon college around the time this photo was taken and rather than going to the Greyhound many of us students went to this very different pub! Inside it was circular as I recall with a central bar serving the famous (infamous?) Double Diamond, that, as far as I can remember, didn’t work wonders!!! The decor inside reflected the pubs name with various plaster columns! What a venue for us arty types! If you were energetic you used the stairs to the left of the picture but if you were a bit lazy you could use the escalator, which is just in shot on the right. The Whitgift centre was built on the land belonging to the Whitgift school. It had a marvellous playing field which you could see from the top of a bus travelling down Wellesley Road! The Whitgift Foundation owned a lot of land in the area the majority of which was leased and not sold! The Whitgift land was leased to the developer and to this day remains so, with the funds being used by the foundation to sponsor their schools, Whitgift, Trinity and Old Palace. The Almshouses on the corner of the High Street and George Street are also still owned by the foundation and are very much a going concern, despite the Croydon Corporation trying to compulsory purchase it so it could widen George Street! The case was appealed and eventually appeared before the House of Lords in 1923 and the building was saved and subsequently designated with a Grade1 listing. Now,sadly, the centre is a poor reflection of its past.